As is generally well known, variety of applications exist wherein a load must be accurately weighed during movement from a stationary position into a load receiving apparatus. Pick up and loading of the refuse into a refuse collection vehicle and pick up and loading of scarp material into a railway car or truck are several of such variety of applications.
One commonly used method is to employ a static scale wherein the carrying vehicle is measured in both empty and loaded condition in order to determined the actual weight of the load. However, such method results in overloaded or under-loaded vehicles and increases the effort of loading such vehicle as a portion of the load must be removed from the overloaded vehicle to meet regulations and load must be added to the under-loaded vehicle to minimize transportation costs. Furthermore, a greater than desired effort is required to separately measure empty and loaded vehicles as the static scales generally located in a somewhat remote location from the location of the load.
Another method employed in weighing a load being lifted and swung by a crane arm employs a digital scale apparatus which is connected to the hook of the crane arm at one end and employs its own hook for attaching the load thereto. Such apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,137 issued on Sep. 7, 1999 to Pflaum and incorporates a load cell to measure the force exerted by such load, an accelerometer to compensate for load motion and a controller which outputs a weight of the load in response to such measured force and motion compensation. However, it has been found that such apparatus does not reliably weighs the load and requires a higher than desirable maintenance effort due to the mountings of battery and electronic components in close proximity to the load and therefore has not received wide acceptance.